Joy’s Hiding Place
Have you ever wished there was a quota for pain in your life? Perhaps if you met your “pain limit” by May, you would be pain-free for the rest of the year. Or if you met your “pain limit” this year, you’d get to pass on pain for the next year or two! Would you like that? I would! Indeed, some situations and seasons of life are so painful that it seems as though we should be pain-free for the rest of our lives!
But even if our lives cannot be pain-free, wouldn’t it be nice if—whenever we were suffering in one area of our lives—we could send a memo requesting that there be no issues in the other areas of our lives? It may look something like this:
_______________________________
Memorandum
To: My Life
From: Me
Subject: Chill Out
Dear Life,
I’m going through a lot right now, so I would appreciate it if you would chill out. While I’m experiencing this present pain and suffering, I would appreciate not having any other problems—no hurtful conflict with the people around me, no unforeseen car or house maintenance issues, no new health issues or physical ailments, no expenses coming out of nowhere, none of that. Please and thank you.
Sincerely,
Me
_______________________________
Wouldn’t it be nice if our lives would receive and comply with that kind of memo? Yeah, it would. But you and I both know that our lives do not work that way. We can find ourselves in seasons of life in which we have all kinds of trials going on—big ones, little ones, medium ones, health ones, financial ones, relational ones, career ones, and the list goes on. Sometimes, we may think that God’s blessings and favor on our lives should mean the absence of such trials. But that’s simply not true.
We can be squarely in the middle of God’s will and be highly favored in His sight…
…and still face all kinds of trials. (Just read about Job’s life in the Bible!)
Now, at this point, you may be thinking: I’m not sure if this news should encourage me or depress me. I’m going to face trials no matter what I do? Where’s the upside? Where’s the positive news? Where’s the joy?
Well, my friend, it turns out that we can find joy within unsuspecting places. In fact, we can find it within places we would least expect it. You may have guessed the location by now. We can find joy… within our trials, within our pain. Yes, you read that correctly. Our trials and our pain can often be joy’s hiding place.
I know, I know. That sounds crazy. So I’m going to let my friend James help me explain it.
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work, so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” ~ James 1:2-4 (NIV)
Let’s unpack these wise words from James a bit:
1) We get to choose how we view our trials
The first word James uses is “consider,” which means “to think of” or “to regard as” or “to deem.” I’m glad James did not say “It is pure joy” to face all kinds of trials, because then we would have to label him as delusional (or “cray cray,” as some say). But he did not say that. He said, “Consider it pure joy” whenever we face all kinds of trials. In other words, we get to choose how we view these trials.
And the choice James is encouraging us to make is not the obvious choice. You see, I don’t need to tell you, “Consider a basketball round.” Why? Because it’s obviously round. And I don’t need to tell you, “Consider fire hot.” Why? Because it’s obviously hot. But the way James is asking us to view our trials is not obvious. That’s why we must make a conscious choice to view our trying times the way James is suggesting—namely, as pure joy.
How are you choosing to view your trials right now? If you’re anything like me, joy probably is not your first choice. We tend to consider facing many trials as spiritual attacks or punishment or just bad luck sometimes. How on earth can we consider facing trials as pure joy? James tells us more...
2) Facing trials builds our “faith muscles”
James knew he would have to explain himself after making a statement like that, so he follows up with this: “because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” You may have noticed that it’s easy to say we have faith in God when we’re sitting comfortably in an air-conditioned church and nothing too major is going on in our lives. But it’s much harder to actually live in faith when our lives seem to be falling apart.
In fact, we don’t really know how strong or weak our faith is until we have to completely rely on God for something. The life tests we encounter expose the status of our faith. I heard a wise preacher say it this way:
Untested faith is unreliable faith.
There is something worse than going through trials: Going through trials with no faith in the Living God of the Bible.
So how do we build up our "faith muscles"? Whenever we face trials, we place our faith in God, and we persevere (which simply means “to keep going”). Similar to exercising our physical muscles, exercising our faith muscles usually involves pain. But we can have joy because of the results that will be coming. And what are the results? Well, for physical exercise, they may be a longer, higher-quality life and a beach-ready body. But what are the results when we allow the testing of our faith to produce perseverance in our lives? Let’s see what James said next!
3) Our trials are not meant to deplete us, but to complete us
Our friend James tells us the reward on the other side of our perseverance when he says: “Let perseverance finish its work, so that you will be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” You see, the issue is that we tend to focus on what we think we’re losing in the midst of trials—health, money, loved ones or friends, security, our reputation, or simply “life as we’ve known it.” But even though some trials may involve removing certain things or people from our lives (even if only temporarily), this Scripture assures us that God’s main purpose for our trials is not to deplete us, but to complete us.
So my final questions to you are these:
Will you persevere through your pain and expect to experience the joy of the Lord in your suffering?
Or
Will you give up?
You get to choose.
You’ve got to choose.
I once read a study which reported that most people’s first attempt at starting a business fails. However, interestingly, most people’s second attempt at starting a business succeeds. But guess what? After failing the first time, most people never try it again a second time. Moral of the story: Don’t give up, my friend. Let perseverance finish its work. It won’t happen overnight; but one day, you’ll look in the mirror, and you’ll see a more mature and more complete version of yourself looking back at you. And that, my friend, will bring you...
Pure. Joy.
Your sister-friend,
Leah
